Archive for the Australian underground Category

Thomas William vs Scissor Lock – Jewelz (New Editions) 2012

Posted in Australian underground, Music, Scissor Lock, Thomas William with tags , , on February 5, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

I have become a bit obsessed with the New Weird Australia site. This is another cracking release from their label New Editions and their first one for 2012. Thomas William and Scissor Lock are two Sydney based producers. I’ve never heard their work as individual artists so am in no position to compare how Jewelz fits in with their signature styles. What I can tell you though is that Jewelz is four tracks of difficult electronica. Things start of with Cadillac which smashes quasi-wheezy victoriana carousel sounds with something a bit Matmos like before bursting into shimmering drone and a vaguely Sigur Ros-style vocal. The themes of shimmering drone and electronic day-glo overload make an appearance on the self titled track Jewlez but here  are counterbalanced by layers of slightly  sinister noise bubbling underneath. The third track Omega is my favourite and brings a reverse looped ambience before shifting into oompahpah electronic and layering with it all with ethereal vocals before the drone asserts it’s dominance.  The entire thing is rounded out by the shimmering bliss of Qusqu, a track that comes the closest to a traditional sense – like Sigur Ros mixed with Pimmon with Birchville Cat Motel producing the most wonderful chill out experimentronica. I love this sort of music – both transcendent and challenging, Jewlez is a very fine release indeed.

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Various – New Weird Australia; Bleak Metal (NWA) 2011

Posted in Australian underground, metal, Music, noise with tags , , on February 3, 2012 by noisenoisenoise

 

Well this is a revelation. In the 400 or so posts on Ducks Battle Satan, this is the first time that I’ve ever reviewed a compilation. I stumbled across this after seeing a small add for New Weird Australia in the back of The Wire. NWA are a not for profit organisation which gets some funding from the Australia Council for the  Arts to  distribute and publicise experimental  and avant garde music. They run a small boutique label called New Editions as well as produce a bimonthly compilation which can be dowloaded for free of which Bleak Metal is one.

The title of Bleak Metal does it some injustice. The bands on this run the full spectrum of noise nastiness from the noise/doom/DanFriel-esque of Axxonn, the black metal of Blutennacht to the sine wave crackle noise of Alex White. The mighty psychedelic noise metal of No Anchor makes an appearance in Dead Pony but the absolute killer for me was the track from Dead Boomers which is a glorious exposition of rumbling noise. Another highligh is the Lightning Bolt ferocity of the fantastically lo-fi Dies on Plane’s. Their track Hunting For Teeth starts full of Sword Heaven malevolence before launching into some groovy post-metal throb. In fact there is hardly a dud on this and you really should  head over to www.newweirdaustralia.com to download this. The Australian underground is alive and well.

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No Anchor – Steam (Self Released) 2009

Posted in Australian underground, Music, No Anchor with tags , , on December 26, 2010 by noisenoisenoise

I got sent a record by a local band which was released recently. I had never head of them which is not surprising given my inability to catch any band live these days. It sucked to be frank but  as I did a bit of research on that  band I somehow came across No Anchor, a Brisbane based duo of Alex Gilles and Ian Rogers. I downloaded their first record (which I’ll review at a later time) and felt so guilty I forked out money for Steam, their most recent opus. It is tremendous stuff. Steam is produced by avant-royalty Lawrence English (Room40) and is a compendium of bonged-out psychedelic fuzz  and fucked up sludge, garage punk. But the treat for avant rock nerds like ourselves is the epic fourth track – an atmospheric, drone-rock number which may be the best track I’ve heard from any Australian act this year. If this is any indication of how strong my local scene is then I need to get my arse out a bit more in the new year. This beautifully packaged disc can be bought straight from the band at www.noanchorband.blogspot.com.  I recommend that you get the twenty dollars your Nanna gave you for Christmas and buy this straight away.

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Lloyd Barrett – Mise En Scene (Room 40) 2007

Posted in Australian underground, Drone, Lloyd Barrett, Music, noise with tags , , , , on December 12, 2009 by noisenoisenoise

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This  blog has been running for over two years now and finally on post 264 I get around to posting on a home town Brisbane noise/sound artist. My friend M bought me Mise En Scene for my birthday this year. This is the woman who introduced me to Nurse With Wound so her taste in most things is pretty sound but for some reason I hadn’t actually got around to listening to this record until four months later. This is one of those exquisitely put together experimental/ambient/electronic/drone records that every now and then some out of the woodwork. At times it sounds like Peter Rehberg accompanying The Necks (Exhale) but the rest is much harder to describe. It’s certainly ambient in places with interjections of harsh electronics. I think field recordings might be involved because many tracks have a sound that reminds me of insects in the tropics. If you’re  looking for some comparisons then I’d suggest that  there is some Fennesz influence at work and some of it reminds me of KK Null’s Fertile in places. Stunning – you can track it down here and listen to some samples.

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Fabulous Diamonds – Seven Songs (Nervous Jerk) 2008

Posted in Australian underground, Music with tags , on March 29, 2009 by noisenoisenoise

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I bought this last year, listened to it once and promptly discarded it. I first tracked this down after Dave Lang (Lexicon Devil) said good things about the band on his blog. After that one listen I just didn’t get it. Fast forward to 2009 and I start noticing  that this is turning up on a whole  stack of end of year “Best Of” lists. Initially I resisted gong back and giving it another go. I just assumed they all got it wrong like those critics who like LCD Soundsystem In the last couple of days I’ve been listening to it a fair it and I’m embarrassed to say that my initial reaction to it was way off. I remember having the same reaction to the second Liars album. The only album I’ve sold on ebay only to re-buy it a couple of months when I realised I’d been a bit hasty.

This  is freaking great. A two piece from Melbourne, Seven Songs is there debut Cd which has since promptly been released by the magnificent Siltbreeze in the US.  It takes a very brave band to combine, drone, psychedelia, global, post-punk, avant rock, experimentalism and jazz (gotta love that sax!). A very brave band indeed. This is a much more complex offering than the  last couple fo Religious Knives records but if you like that band there is a hell of a lot to like here. One of the few bands I’d line up to see live. (And yes that really is his back hair).

Here are a couple of live shows.

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Grey Daturas – Return to Disruption (Neurot) 2008

Posted in Australian underground, Grey Daturas, Music, noise with tags on May 8, 2008 by noisenoisenoise

You know I only walked into my local record store to buy sunroof! but walked out with this as well.  The Grey Daturas are a trio from Melbourne who have been churning out their particular brand of antipodean  noise for a couple of years now. Some don’t regard what they do as noise, and I get the hesitation. For the most part the Grey Daturas churn out a wonderfully satisfying brand of heavy psychedelic guitar workout but they also allow a more experimental, and dare I say noisy, side to come to the fore. This is a very good record. It’s actually the first full length I’ve heard from them and it threw me in many ways. There are only seven tracks on Return to Disruption but they seem to cover a bundle of different noise style over the length of the album.

When I was listening to the first track I thought: Lightning Bolt but less arty farty and less annoying.   But if that’s the only thing I’d heard I would have developed a very wrong impression of this very impressive band. The second album titled track owes more to the kitchen-sink sound and drone experiments of Sandoz Lab Technicians. The third track starts off sounding like Lightning Bolt before taking an abrupt left turn into Birchville territory. A pure drone track was certainly not expected but considering that I’m a bit partial to droneI was pretty happy with its inclusion. I suppose the one major impression I get from listening to Return to Disruption is the heavy influence of The Dead C. Just like the Dead C, the Grey Daturas are not afraid to mix up their styles.

By the time we get half way through we’re firmly in the land of doom before descending into a psych-metal freakout. There is still time for another avant-garde Dead C-esque noise experiment before the whole thing is closed out by two psych metal melt downs (think Boris ). It’s a great album and well worth picking up if you’re interested at all in noise, drone, sludge psych and doom.

This was recorded in 2006 mixed last year and released a couple of weeks ago. Somehow I don’t think this band are going to be churning out a shit load of product any time soon.  Return To Disruption almost plays like a well thought out noise sampler and certainly puts Australian noise on the map even if it does remind me of a stack of bands from across the Tasman Sea.

Live in Oakland 2007

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Thug – Everything is Beautiful in It’s Own Way (Universal) 2001

Posted in Australian underground, Music, Thug with tags on May 1, 2008 by noisenoisenoise

Lucas Abela (Justioce Yeldham) criticised me for not covering more Australian noise music so here’s one from the vaults.

Thug were a shotlived band from Sydney who released a cople of records in the late 1980′s on the avant rock label Black Eye. Besides also being the home of Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, Lubricated Goart and the Butcher Shop, the actual output of Black Eye was pretty limited. The mover and shaker behind Thug was the awesome TexPerkins who also fronted The Butcher Shop, Salamander Jim, The Beasts of Bourbon and later Cruel Sea. In Australia he is best know for his work with the Cruel Sea, a twangy pub rockband that actually won Best Band at Australia’s equivalent to the Grammys (an ARIA) ten years or so ago. When you consider his output in Thug (scroll down for a video snippet) you’ll understand that to those who remembered Tex from his early days his later success was a bit of a shock. For those overseas it’s the equivalent Aaron Dilloway from Wolf Eyes fronting up for an MTV award after forming a supergroup with Wilco.

Unfortunately the only thing I could of Thug’s short lived output is this hobbled together compilation released 13 years after the band folded. The fact that it this was released on Universal is an ongoing mystery to me. I mean, what the fuck were they thinking? It’s difficult to reconcile this with the full length albums they released but over its 28 tracks Everything … seems to cover the majority of their output.

The incredibly frustrating thing about this record is the complete lack of liner notes. Thug have an interesting history and their story deserves to be told. The tracks themselves span the gamit of experimental music. Some of their outputsounds like the intense noise fuck of Whitehouse, the frenetic cut and paste technique of John Wiese, the bonged out psychedelia of Butthole Surfers, the fart joke ambience of the early Boredoms records and a hunderd other strange and wacky bands through the ages. Although the compilation itself is disappointing due to the lack of info or context, Thug deserve to be heard by more people.

The excellent Dave from Lexicon Devil has a very good write up.

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I’ve posted the first thing of Thug’s that I’d ever heard. This is from the excellent Carry on Disarming video released by the NME in 1988.

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Crime and the City Solution – The Bride Ship (Mute) 1989

Posted in Australian underground, Crime and the City Solution, Music on February 20, 2008 by noisenoisenoise

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It’s nostalgia time again. I’ve previously posted on the very stupid decision I made many years ago to dispense with my collection of vinyl. One of my favourite records that was lost in the purge was The Bride Ship. I decided I couldn’t take a risk of this one being deleted and bought myself the CD version last week.

The Bride Ship is just as good as I remembered and invokes all of the same antipodean longing that The Triffids, Go Betweens and Nick Cave did so well as displaced locals abroad. Crime and the City Solution were never as lauded as their contemporaries which I’ve never fully understood. I suppose the band name itself is a bit stupid  and I admit that  until I had heard this record when I was still in high school, I had always assumed they were some early 1980′s  English rap band like Brother D and the Collective Effort.

Crime and the City Solution were fronted by Simon Bonney and hosted the awesome Mick Harvey from the Bad Seeds and Birthday Party, Rowland S Howard from the Birthday Party and various blow-ins from Einstruzende Neubeten. By the time The Bride Ship came out Howard had left and some consider this record to be the start of the downward slide. Don’t believe them. They were as smart as the Triffids and this record in particular needs to be heard by more people.

For your listening pleasure the first track, The Shadow of No Man

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Lubricated Goat – Paddock of Love (Black Eye) 1988

Posted in Australian underground, Lubricated Goat on February 4, 2008 by noisenoisenoise

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The late 1980′s were halcyon days for Australian rock. There were a plethora of great Australia labels like Au Go Go , Red Eye and Citadel releasing music that I don’t think was ever bettered. One of my favourite bands from that era is Lubricated Goat, the sleazy, lurching rock pigs of Sydney. Fronted by the dignity-free Stu Spasm, they released the all mighty Paddock of Love in 1988 on Red Eye’s avant sister label Black Eye (also the home to the fury of Thug, Tex Perkins experimental nosie band). Overseas readers may remember Mr Spasm from his membership in the quasi-supergroup of Crunt (with Babes in Toylands Kat Bjelland and John Spencer Blues Expolsion’s Russell Simmins) that released a self-titled record on the much missed Trance Syndicate label. Lubricated Goat were also released on Amphetamine Reptile and had a single of two released by Sub Pop. To my mind they are like a fine antipodean example of pre-grunge pub rock.

Sadly this record in now out of print and I managed to secure this mint copy on ebay last year. In fact all of the Red Eye and Black Eye releases are now out of print, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists (if anyone wants to sell me a copy of Hit Me with That Surreal Feel on CD leave a comment), Beast of Bourbon and Thug are bands that defined an era but whose records are now very hard to find.

Lubricated Goat would have managed to slip under the radar in Austalia had it not been for a performance on Andrew Denton’s talk show Blah Blah Blah in 1988. Blah Blah Blah for overseas readers was the ABC’s (Australia’s BBC equivalent) attempt at edgy youth programming. Below is the video for In The Raw which you may have guessed Australian slang for being naked. Lip-synching nude on Australian TV? Brave, very brave.

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Died Pretty – Winterland

Posted in Australian underground, Died Pretty on February 4, 2008 by noisenoisenoise

Lord this takes me back. Mr Ron Peno may be the strangest looking man in rock but fuck could he write a mean tune. He’s still releasing records. The last one was with Robert Forster(Go Betweens)  as the Darling Downs.

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